Being able to thrive in a school setting isn’t only about a person’s academic ability; it also has a lot to do with their ability to deal with competing demands, organize themselves, and stick to deadlines. Staying Ahead of the Game (SAOTG) isn’t just your regular tutoring company; they focus on academic coaching; a combination of traditional tutoring, life skills coaching, and executive functioning development. Today, the founder and CEO of SAOTG, Evan Weinberger joins us to share how his personal experience with learning difficulties combined with the gap that he noticed in the educational support space led him to found what is now the largest academic coaching and tutoring organization in Houston (and still growing!) During this episode, Evan also explains who will benefit from SAOTG’s services, why their approach resonates so well with so many children, how (and why) the school system needs to change, and more. We couldn’t have asked for a more inspirational episode to end off the Beef Podcast journey. Stay tuned for our next venture: Small Business Origins!
Key Points From This Episode:
- Welcome to the final episode of the Beef Podcast!
- How Evan blows off steam after a stressful day.
- Evan’s original career goal, and an overview of his career trajectory.
- How Evan was able to thrive at school despite a number of learning differences.
- The gap in the educational support space that inspired Evan to found Staying Ahead of the Game (SAOTG).
- Words of encouragement for getting your own entrepreneurial venture off the ground.
- Advice for choosing a career path.
- Resources provided by SAOTG.
- The age range of people who can benefit from SAOTG’s academic coaching.
- How SAOTG has grown since its founding.
- The profile of a typical SAOTG client.
- The ‘million dollar question’ that SAOTG coaches ask their students each session.
- Changes that Evan believes need to take place in the school system so that more children can thrive.
- Free resources that can be found on the SAOTG website and social media platforms.
- The exciting new podcast that is going to be replacing Beef!
Tweetables:
“Getting into entrepreneurship was the trifecta of my own experiences and struggles in school, the research that I was learning about in IO psychology, and teaching juniors and seniors.” — @SAOTG_Evan [0:13:42]
“Success in school is not necessarily about how bright you are, it’s about the systems that you have in place in order to keep track of the short-term, medium-term, long-term things that are being asked of you, and juggling all of those deadlines and meeting those obligations.” — @SAOTG_Evan [0:15:00]
“Don’t be afraid to start that [entrepreneurial] journey even if you don’t know all the questions that are going to come up, all the struggles that are going to come up, and all the answers.” — @SAOTG_Evan [0:18:17]
“Find something that you love doing first. Don’t worry about money or lifestyle, just find something that you love first, and then figure out a way to make money doing it.” — @SAOTG_Evan [0:20:33]
“There needs to be a life skills class taught at every school to every kid, neurotypical or neurodivergent.” — @SAOTG_Evan [0:41:00]
Links Mentioned in Today’s Episode:
Staying Ahead of the Game on LinkedIn
Staying Ahead of the Game on Facebook